1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a shredding mill and the relative shredding method for use in a waste disposal plant to shred, advantageously but not exclusively, scrap such as vehicles, trailers, waste material or other, into which the scrap is loaded and shredded in order to reduce its bulk.
In particular, the present invention allows to break up and/or shred scrap, iron or otherwise, and to reduce its volume, which can then be sent for subsequent processing, such as for example to separate the iron, plastic, glass or other materials and to subsequent recycling.
2. Description of Related Art
Shredding mills are known, for shredding and breaking up scrap, used in waste disposal plants.
Known shredding mills comprise a shredding chamber having a shredding unit, consisting for example of a plurality of shredding hammers moved by an associate motor. The shredding chamber is disposed downstream of a feed device suitable to introduce the scrap to be shredded into the shredding chamber. The feed device is usually associated with means to convey the scrap, such as a slide, and can include crushing rolls suitable to cooperate with the conveyor means in order to treat the scrap preliminarily, for example to crush it and move it forward.
One disadvantage of these known shredding mills is that, since they are fed substantially discontinuously, in that the scrap is introduced in an irregular way onto said conveyor means, for example loaded from a bucket or a conveyor belt, the feed device does not allow an efficient transfer of the scrap into the shredding chamber. It is advisable that the shredding chamber is constantly filled over time with a pre-determined amount of scrap, so that the drive motor of the shredding hammers works in the operating conditions for which it was designed and sized. This is both so as not to overload the motor and prevent possible breakages or early wear, and also to prevent the motor from idling, even for brief periods of time.
A further disadvantage of known shredding mills is that, in order to ensure an adequate and efficient feed of the shredding chamber, the conveyor slide must have a great inclination, which entails an increase in the overall bulk of the shredding plant.
A further disadvantage of known shredding mills is that portions of shredded waste can come out, suddenly and not wanted, from the shredding chamber, thus causing a problem of safety for the operators who control and supervise the plant.